MechWarrior Online Developer Q&A #3 and #4

Two more rounds of community-submitted questions have been answered on the official MechWarrior Online website, with Developer Q&A #3 focusing on “Information Warfare” and Developer Q&A #4 spending even more time on “Role Warfare”. If the character system winds up as satisfying as they’re making it sound, I’m going to lose a lot of time to this game:

When you unlock Pilot Points on the Battlemech Tech Tree (which are then assigned to the pilot avatar), do you carry those Pilot Points that you have learned (on your pilot) from one mech chassis (the one you gained the experience on and unlocked the Pilot Point with) to another mech chassis which has no experience? Dihm

[PAUL] Yes, once you’ve unlocked something, it stays unlocked. When traversing the Mech Trees, you unlock the efficiencies of that Mech chassis. For example, if you unlock the entire Mech Tree for the Jenner 7-D, and for some reason you sell it, and for some stranger reason you buy a new Jenner 7-D, the tree for the new 7-D is completely unlocked. You would not have to re-skill that chassis. The same applies to the pilot points you earned while operating the first 7-D. When you sold the first 7-D, you retain all your unlocked pilot points.

[DAVID] When you gain a Pilot Point, you’ll always have that Pilot Point until you spend it to unlock a Pilot Skill. At that point, you’ll always have the Pilot Skill unlocked, which allows you to buy the related module to install in your ‘Mechs.

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Let’s say you level up your mech and pilot through a series of battles, and then one fateful day you have your ride completely destroyed. Do you lose all mech XP and start over in a new mech, but retain your buff pilot abilities? BarHaid

[PAUL] You will not be able to have your ‘Mech destroyed but that being said, if you somehow lost your ‘Mech you would not have to rework your way through the Mech Tree. You retain your XP for that chassis.

[DAVID] Your ‘Mech can never be completely destroyed. Even when it’s shot to pieces, your team of mechanics and techies are skilled enough to restore it to a bare minimum, just barely functioning state. If you pay your repair bills, they’ll be able to repair it all the way up to a perfectly pristine condition. So you won’t lose any of your ‘Mech XP or the ‘Mech Efficiencies that you have unlocked with it. Also, keep in mind that the ‘Mech Efficiencies represent not just the small tweaks and tuning that your tech team performs on the ‘Mechs that you pilot, but also your ability as a pilot to squeeze the extra mile out of every system as you become more familiar with operating a particular model or variant.

[GARTH] To be clear, you could take a damaged ‘˜Mech into combat, if you wanted to.